“How could this happen again?”
I cannot count how often I’ve read these words or heard them in conversations in response to yet another deadly occurrence of discrimination, dehumanization and detestation. It’s shocking to see just how far our world is from the world God intended. It’s heartbreaking to recognize just how far our churches are from the church God intended.
This is one reason why loving God matters so much. If the passivity, partiality, and politics of the church of God could be purged by people inflamed, informed and impassioned by love for God the revolution we’d witness would be wondrous. Healing would flow instead of hatred. Reconciliation could replace racism. Justice would thrive where it now withers. In many ways, the hope of the world lies in the presence of people passionate for God, and all God has made.
But this is no easy task. A lot of us have become lazy. We’ve adopted other, more easily attained, destinations in our spiritual journey. We’ve taken the roads much travelled rather than the one less travelled. To become the movement of mercy and the crusade of compassion God intends, we must re-commit to the labor of love. Brene Brown, in Daring Greatly, reminds us that love requires effort:
“Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow.”
It may be easy to fall in love with God. But to stay in love and to deepen that love requires effort. It is something that must be nurtured. Something that can, and must, grow. Peter alludes to this in his second letter:
For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith … with love. (2 Pet. 1:5-7 ESV)
Faith, that initial attraction to Father, Son and Spirit must be supplemented, built upon, grown. And to do so requires “every effort.”
It’s important to note that Peter precedes this with these words:
By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. (2 Pet. 1:3 NLT)
God has given us all we need for living a godly life, a life of love. This comes by his divine power. Elsewhere, Paul attributes this divine power to the Holy Spirit, reminding us that the Spirit will grow fruit within us, fruit he characterizes as “love” (Gal. 5:22). Dallas Willard, in his book The Great Omission, writes that the Spirit is one of three ways in which we become the people we’ve been created to be (the other two being suffering and spiritual disciplines). We trust in the Spirit to empower our love, to help transform us into loving people.
Yet we, to use Paul’s words, are to “walk” by the Spirit, be “led” by the Spirit, “live” by the Spirit, and “keep in step” with the Spirit (Ga. 5:16,18,25). We must, to use Peter’s words, “make every effort” in our pursuit of becoming people who deeply and enduringly love God, and thus also love all he has made.
We must, in other words, overcome the barrier called “sloth.” The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us of this truth:
“Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks.” (Eccl. 10:18 ESV)
There’s a word, the writer notes, for that tendency we have for not providing a structure like a home the ongoing upkeep and care it requires. That word is sloth. Sloth isn’t merely laziness. Sloth is anything that keeps us from attending to the nurture and care of something that requires constant upkeep, like a home. Or a life.
Gary Thomas writes about this when he makes this statement:
“Some of us live with the mistaken impression that our faith needs only to be planted, not tended.”
It’s one thing to plant a garden. That’s the exciting thing. It’s a lot of work. But you can get it all done in one big effort. You can start it and finish it in a limited amount of time.
When it comes to faith, to spirituality, there’s something similar. You can make a statement of faith. You can be baptized. And that can happen in a day. It may have taken years to work up to it. But it can happen in a few moments. And you’re done. Faith is planted.
Sadly, that’s where a lot of people stop. We become sloths.
We’re like a gardener who plants but doesn’t tend. Weeds infest. Pests invade. The flowers or fruits or vegetables may not grow at all. And if they do grow, they don’t reach their potential. A garden has to be planted. But it also has to be tended.
The same is true with faith. But so many of us become sloths when it comes to our faith. We fail to engage in the activity that is going to tend our faith.
Sloth was once known as a deadly sin because it led to a finality and fatality in our life with God. What we are witnessing today however, is that sloth is also a deadly sin because it is leading to the actual death and demise of our neighbors! The lethargy of the modern church when it comes to the love of God has put the lives of those God loves in grave danger.
The earliest Christians thus committed to what they called “a rule of life.” They understood that certain practices and rituals had to be embraced and embodied in order to become who we were meant to be. Stopping to pray at multiple hours during the day. Resting in silence and stillness. Listening and responding to the movement of the Spirit. These and hundreds of other disciplines shaped them into selfless saints. They knew that loving God doesn’t just happen. We don’t merely drift into it. It’s something we work at over an entire lifetime, day by day, hour by hour. May all congregations recommit to such rules. May all disciples rededicate themselves to this work. The fate of our world depends upon it.
